Caseworkers Allison Lemieux serves Thanksgiving lunch to clients at the Chez Doris women's shelter in Montreal, Friday, October 10, 2014 at 12:12 PM. Since last spring the centre has had to cut back on weekend hours due to funding problems. Phil Carpenter

Nearly 100 women packed into the Chez Doris drop-in centre on Friday morning for a Thanksgiving feast, laughing and chatting as they filled their bellies with turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie.

For some, it may be the last bite of food they see for days.

The day centre, which opened in 1977 and caters exclusively to disadvantaged women, was forced to start closing down on weekends this summer because of an overall budget shortfall of around $150,000 per year. With Monday being a holiday, Chez Doris’s door will only be unlocked again on Tuesday morning, so between now and then, it’s anyone’s guess where some of the clients will go.

Chez Doris is carrying around $50,000 in debt as it struggles to maintain its existing services, which include hot showers, beds for daytime naps, medical care, counselling, clothing, cooking classes and computer training.Phil Carpenter

Since last spring, the Chez Doris women's shelter in Montreal has had to cut back on weekend hours because of funding problems. Phil Carpenter

Director Marina Boulos Winton, left, chats with client Alejandra Robert at the Chez Doris women's shelter in Montreal, Friday, October 10, 2014. Since last spring the centre has had to cut back on weekend hours due to funding problems. Phil Carpenter

“It’s a major problem,” said the centre’s interim director, Marina Boulos-Winton, on Friday as she watched heaping platefuls of food stream out of the kitchen. “I happened to come by two Saturdays ago to take a picture of the front of the house. I found three women sitting on our doorstep.”

The women who have their own apartments will undoubtedly be lonely over the next few days as families across Montreal gather to break bread and give thanks, but Boulos-Winton said she is most concerned for the clients who have no roof over their heads.

A makeshift shelter at a covered space beside the parking lot at the Chez Doris women’s shelter in Montreal, Friday, October 10, 2014. When there are no available beds sometimes women will find a space outside the building to sleep. Since last spring, the centre has had to cut back on weekend hours due to funding problems. (Phil Carpenter / THE GAZETTE)Phil Carpenter

“Some women don’t know we’re closed, so they show up at the door … they don’t know where to go,” she said. One Inuit woman who is a regular at Chez Doris makes her bed in a tiny space right under the centre’s back porch, hidden from view by a worn blanket drawn across a clothesline

There are other meal programs in the city over the weekends, Boulos-Winton explained, but they are mainly located in the east end and the women have a hard time accessing them. There are also no weekend drop-in centres where people can spend the long hours between breakfast, lunch and dinner. Shelters that cater to both sexes are not always the best option for women, she noted, because some aren’t comfortable eating or socializing among men.

Alejandra Robert, 41, has been coming to Chez Doris since 2008. Once a successful real estate broker and busy mother of three, she suffered serious injuries in a car accident in the mid-2000s — and her life quickly began to unravel. Her short-term memory became fuzzy and panic attacks became a regular occurrence.

“I lost my children, my job, my house, my condo,” Robert said. “I don’t remember how I got here … but I came here and met people and they said they wanted to take care of me.

“They accept me how I am. They saved my life.”

Robert is now set up in her own apartment with her youngest child, a 12-year-old girl. She still comes to the centre on a daily basis for additional support, and her story is far from unique.

The drop-in program welcomes up to 100 women each day that it operates. They are never questioned, and they are never turned away.

Chez Doris is carrying around $50,000 in debt as it struggles to maintain its existing services, which include hot showers, beds for daytime naps, medical care, counselling, clothing, cooking classes and computer training. The city of Montreal helps to keep the facility up and running to the tune of $30,000 per year, but according to Boulos-Winton, that amount has remained unchanged for over a decade while demand has only increased. At the moment, she said, what Chez Doris needs most is a major financial boost and some new volunteers willing to lend a hand as the temperature drops.

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